For many of us who are in shock that Donald Trump is to be our next president, for now we can bury our heads in the sand as we quietly if not nervously figure out how to deal with what we know of Trump and his divisive mindset.  Maybe it was all a sham so that he could get elected.  Time will tell.

As this was unfolding last night, my sweet tooth was aching for a slice of cake.  And so at 9 in the evening I put together this wonderful apple cake. (Talk about being an obsessive baker.) And after an hour of baking and 30 minutes to cool down I cut my first slice when the presidential path was clear.  The cake is so sweet and delicious that it easily mitigated life’s more sour moments.

Spiced Applesauce Cake with Caramel Frosting

Spiced Applesauce Cake with Caramel Frosting

The recipe is from an old Lee Bailey book, “Country Desserts.”  If you don’t know Bailey, he was the Ina Garten—The Barefoot Contessa– of his day in the 1980s, but he was more stylish than the homespun Garten (BTW homespun or not she lives in East Hampton, in a  compound well-worth north of ten million dollars).

Bailey also lived in the Hamptons in a beautifully simple house that was set back from the ocean, separated by a waterway called Sagaponack Pond, whose zip code, incidentally, is now one of the wealthiest in the country.  In his day, it wasn’t that way but just a beautiful enclave of farms, simple vacation homes and seascapes before it become the bastion for hedge fund gold bugs who changed the landscape forever with their castellated shingled horrors aka McMansions.

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This Spiced Applesauce Cake is a cinch to put together.  Get the best applesauce you can.  I used the homemade applesauce from Beth’s Farm Market.  The cake is finally covered with a caramel glaze, which is like draping the cake with candy.

 

A good dollop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream served with the cake will make this dessert even more special.  Or just serve it plain.  I happened to have some homemade coffee mocha-fudge-ripple ice cream on hand and if you’re going to gild a lily, this was the way to do it.